~ Wife. Mother. Skeptic. Atheist. Smartass.

A Letter To The DAYDians: My Life With Andrew Blake Laid Bare

You’ve been hearing about me for a long time. Andy called me “Louise,” which really is my middle name. I am the woman who was accused of leaving him after seven years, taking my son “Connor” away from Andy, who loved Connor as his own. I am the girl in the painting.

He did it from a photograph, which he staged and took. The fabric was later turned into a Fiona costume.

I don’t know what Andy is telling you about my writings now. He may have tried to brush it all aside, as he has always affected an attitude of extreme indifference to “kerfuffles” on the internet. However, I also know that he read Jeanine’s blog ravenously. We didn’t have a computer, but we haunted internet cafes, carefully downloading copies of everything she wrote onto discs. I still have some of them. I know that some of you are following along. I even know that some of you are visiting both sides of the fence and reporting back to him. That’s ok. I understand that, I really do. It was my job once too. It would not surprise me if he altered things just enough to fit his new Harry Potter theme and then kept the same story, exploiting how I had believed but then lost faith, and needed people to fill in where I had failed.

This is the start of a "packet" we were preparing to give to "new recruits." It was done when Diamond was still with us. Click to enlarge and see all the reasons why "The Mindhole" HAD to be real.

I know he goes by “Commander” and “Fearless Leader” these days. In my day, it was “Chief,” although that wasn’t necessarily what I was to call him. That’s what the people who came through him referred to him as. I was “the Constant,” and it was my job to keep track of all the “others,” to pass messages between them if necessary, and to keep the Chief informed as to what was going on, since he was “in the ether” when others came through.

This is a scene from early in the time travel/teleportation storyline. When a bunch of teenaged soldiers secretly went off into WWII. You would recognize these characters; most of them have been reworked into the DAYDverse. Click to Enlarge

I remember all the “therapy” he gave me. He made me feel like it was safe to open up to him. In fact, he was remarkably perceptive. He pushed me to face every personal shortcoming; I felt like I was growing into a better version of myself. I thought of him as my hero, my savior. He made me stronger. Braver. Better, because I was dealing with all the abuse I’d suffered. My “neglectful, cruel mother” (who was really just a working Mom; she wasn’t neglectful). My insensitive, uncaring friends (who didn’t support me as I got more and more into his world). He helped me remember horrible, horrible things and deal with them. Some of them were real things that happened to me, like my abusive high school boyfriend. Some of them were fanciful exaggerations – such as some of the extreme abuse. He’d keep telling me, in the form of my father figure/guide, that there was more to remember. It was like a game; unraveling these riddles that had (apparently) always been inside me, ruining me.

There was evil inside me. Also, they can't all be pictures or letters from Andy. We need some levity here.

The big reveal, not long after Tentmoot, was that I had multiple personality disorder. I hadn’t “completely split,” so I was still sometimes aware of what my “alternate” personalities were doing, and sometimes he would claim that my “alters” had done things I was unaware of. He labeled my temper, my sexuality, my fear, my childlike, and my memories of abuse as different personalities, and one by one we had to deal with each of them. There were benefits to this – because of this “therapy,” I finally gained control over my wild temper, a control that I’ve only gotten better at over the years. I got past the sexual violence I’d gone through, so I no longer had panic attacks. And as I’ve said before, I was feeling a full range of emotions for the first time after years of feeling nothing but gray.

I though that Andy was the prism that had changed my life to colors.

Later, there were interventions. I was a “control addict” and needed to recover from that, because I was ruining lives (his and Diamond’s specifically, at that point). I was utterly devastated, and did everything I possibly could to own my “addiction” and “make reparations.” Sometime after that, he got me to believe that my regular panic attacks were because I was possessed by a “secular demon” (because “demons” are real, but they don’t always conform to religion because religion is flawed and Andy, or rather, the elves, knew the truth.) I went through several weeks of careful preparation and finally went through an exorcism ritual.

It didn't involve an old priest and a young priest, but he could have become both if necessary, I'm sure.

What I’m saying is, I believed not only his stories, but that I owed him my life. I thought he had saved me from my misery, brought me to a better place, made me feel, made me face my fears, made me whole. More than once, I swore to him that “even if I didn’t believe you, I would stay, because this life is better than ‘normal’ life.” Beyond that, I also believed I had an important, special future because of him. That I had a duty to stay with him, that the world itself might be at stake.

"Birth Announcements" for two babies born in alternate 1944. Towards the end, about four or five characters got pregnant. He was getting baby-obsessed, and I would not be surprised if he's been pushing for people to have kids. Which is terrifying. Click to enlarge.

Andy (or one of the others) regularly explained why I had been “chosen” to be his constant. He talked about other people on earth who might have had my place – there were a number of qualifying factors, including low-level telepathic/empathetic power (which allowed me to sometimes “sense” the Elves and Hobbits, in their own dimension, standing near me. Andy, of course, could just see them), my faith, my loyalty, the fact that in a previous life I had been Tolkien (In high school I got on a past lives kick, and used to believe I had been a professor in one. Andy knew this before he introduced the Tolkien thing). I was the one who believed Andy when he started channeling Merry Brandybuck (Kalimac Brandagamba, here’s that blog). I participated in several spiritual battles (there are chat records of this, which were published in Jeanine’s book When A Fan Hit The Shit).

Kalimac Brandagamba. He spoke in broken english and was flamingly gay. Click to enlarge.

Once I was the Constant, there were endless missions. While Diamond and Little Sam were with us, we had to help mend Frodo’s (Maura’s) six-thousand-year-old case of PTSD – he was still having ringfits, still terribly damaged. We listened to Sam (Ban) and Frodo’s true stories about the ring quest, and about how Tolkien’s wife was able to channel the hobbits too, which is part of how he learned the story himself. We helped Pippin (Raz) and Merry (Kali) come to terms with the rest of their post-quest lives, and from the curse that had tormented them for the next 6000 years. We also helped Jordan (who was secretly Elijah Wood, remember?) cope with a lifetime of hideous, crippling abuse. [NOTE:None of this has anything to do with the real Elijah Wood.] Jordan also had multiple personality disorder (unrelated to the channeling), so we had to help him deal with that.

Later, Jordan “committed suicide” (the same way Amy had previously) specifically to punish Diamond. And Andy came – that is, now he was the duplicate soul of Orlando Bloom, who also had a history full of abuse and unprocessed pain [NOTE: This also has nothing to do with the real Orlando Bloom.] We had to “help” him too. After Diamond left (or rather, was forced to leave, by Andy), there were many, many more quests. I became involved in war among the gods, because I might be a Maiar (like Gandalf) trapped in a human body. Later, it turned out that Gandalf was really Satan, the actual devil himself, and that most of the things I’d been involved with weren’t real after all.

That was when he switched over to Narnia, initially bringing just Peter (the real child from England, who had refugeed with C.S. Lewis), then the rest of the Pevensie children. Or rather, the Blakewell children – when he changed his name legally, he chose “Blake” as a short-form of that last name. I became a mother-figure to those children – they called me “Mom” and behaved as children. Peter figured out how to use The Mindhole (as we all called him, aside from calling him Chief) to teleport within his own time by “going back” to a different location then he started from. He also figured out how to “take things back” with him – apparently, it’s all about force of will and perception. So then Andy had an entirely new alternate world to work with – and that’s when it gets too complex for a single blog post.

These are signatures of many (but not all) of the "others" from 1944. Click to enlarge.

What I’m saying is, I know how deeply you are invested. I know that you think that they need you. They love you. Maybe you have children in there. Or parents (remember, Elrond was my “adoptive father,” and my secret name, Elhorian, supposedly meant “adopted daughter of the elves”). Or dear, dear friends you are afraid to lose. And the bond you must feel with the other believers – there is nothing like it. I know. Diamond, Little Sam and I have talked about that, and we still feel that connection to each other. All of us felt it.

"Roo" was the name of one of my childhood imaginary friends. Supposedly, this was my way of sayign "Elrond" because he was my "guardian angel" my whole life - long before I met Andy. Click to enlarge.

I know he’s made you believe you’ve seen things that no one else did. Little Sam and I both believed we’d seen a river run backwards. All three of us believed in the “Valar,” the “gods” from Lord of the Rings – and we believed we had seen evidence of them, such as the wind stopping when Andy told it to stop. When you want to believe as badly as we did, you can see things you wouldn’t otherwise. We never really used any drugs (although Andy would get completely puking-everywhere-trashed every time we had alcohol, which was rare), but once or twice he produced a joint from somewhere, then spent the entire time telling me what I was seeing “with my defenses down.”

A mother's day card I recieved from some of the 1944 characters. "Peter" was my adopted son. Click to enlarge.

All along, way deep inside, there was doubt. Tiny, niggling seeds of doubt that I pushed aside when I heard them, or chose to ignore. When I looked deep inside myself, I believed more than anything that this life was better than the one I’d left behind. I could not bear the thought of going back to my boring, bland life in front of a computer with nothing to feel, nothing to do. I sneered at “normal” people, who watched TV and went to work and never did anything that changed the foundation of the world. I couldn’t imagine living like that.

A drawing of me in costume, done by one of my "adopted children." Click to enlarge.

It turns out that the life I have after being with Andy is nothing like the gray, bland life I’d left behind. Yes, I watch TV and relax. No, I’m no longer on world-changing missions. Because once I let go of the fantasy, once I said no more, I realized I hadn’t been changing the world. I was playing pretend with someone who was using me to perpetuate his own imaginary world. All the tears I wept. All the sleep I lost. All the anguish. All the fear. The triumphs. The failings. None of it mattered after all. It was the greatest, most agonizing loss I’d faced in my life, and I had no one left in my life to turn to. Andy was my father, brother, child, lover and friend, and leaving him took me to the lowest I’d ever imagined.

This is only a handful of quick portraits of some of my 1944 Others, all drawn by Andy. Click to enlarge.

But then. Then I learned that the stakes are not what he claimed. I am not single-handedly responsible for the fate of worlds. Multiple worlds – the undying land, the ghost cities, the alternate timeline in 1944, the children I adopted…None of it. It was the greatest burden I’d ever bourne. Having it lifted from my shoulders is indescribably freeing. I am able to enjoy the dailiness of my life so much more, because if I make a mistake? It’s ok. I won’t be punished for it.

There would be no cold, judgemental Elves telling me I had failed. This is Legolas, btw. Click to enlarge.

I don’t know if any of this will matter to you. I don’t know if you’ll brush it off and cling tighter to him. I don’t know if you’ll even read it. But maybe someday, if you do leave, you’ll remember that this is here. You’ll remember that other people went through what you are going through. You don’t have to depend on him for all your needs. There are people who will listen to you, believe you, and not persecute you for what you embraced. It’s safe out here, it’s real out here, and you can be free of this. Life is so much better on the other side.

Part 1 is up. sorry for the lack of cut. This is/was/will be the most difficult of all the journal entries, for me, so I’m glad it’s done. Thanks for the prompt, Abbey. But beware. It might be tough for you to read.

Oh boy. It’s one thing to hear, it was crazy shit, but this… I am amazed by your courage and your kindness, again. I can only hope that those who need to hear this are listening, or will come back here someday when they’re ready.

(…Lord Elrond of Rivendell quoted 20th century American children books??)

I hope that didn’t come across as me laughing at the situation. I’m not. I was reading an article about Janna St. James and her most recent victim (the one who’s taking her to court); she (victim) said something like: when you look back at it, it’s obvious how crazy and twisted and unbelievable it all is. But when you’re in it, going day by day deeper into it, it’s so gradual you don’t realize you’re drowning.

I don’t know where to begin. There’s so much I want to say and ask, but I don’t even know where to start. Wowow. The “Top 5 Irrational Voices of Reason Packet” is just SICKENING no matter how you look at it, and it makes me slightly scared of Andy whereas before, I was really only morbidly fascinated and a little bit wary of bull.

I just wanted to clarify… I don’t ever remember hearing that Than was channeling “others” like he was doing to you (though he could have been, to those who were closer to him). From the looks of this post, it DEFINITELY wasn’t on the same scale as it was back then. Instead, he was channeling/speaking through/communicating as the DAYD characters in order to rope people further into the fanfic and therefore further into him. So “Terry Boot” or “Michael Corner” or “Colin Creevey” would stop by to chat sometimes. I think they’d chosen Than as their mouthpiece because he “was the first male from a long line of strong female mediums” or something.

For example… One of the more minor characters (I forget which one) was supposedly a cooking genius, and Than loved to spit out “his recipes” much to the gushing of the fanbase. No, not recipes that (Character A) would have enjoyed based on his character profile or recipes that (Character A) had cooked at some point in the fanfic… but (Character A’s) personal, real-life, handed-down-from-his-great-grandmother recipes, because (Character A) was a real-life person, and if you didn’t believe that, then you were small minded and ignorant of the higher and beautiful things in life that most foolish people couldn’t comprehend.

I’ll try to gather my thoughts. This is all just so amazing and terrible. I hope that some of the DAYDians read this (I know that I know one or two who I will point this way…) and really take it to heart. Thank you for sharing this story.

There’s always at least one multitalented artist – first it was Amy, then Kali, then John Kelsey (there were a lot of “Johns”).

There’s the one who cooks. Ban (Samwise) was the first cook; he was all into artisian breads and stews. Even made Herbs and Stewed Rabbit a few times. Very classic “old family” recipes. Later on it was Brimstone (you can see his autograph in the collection). He was an interesting character. He was pyrokinetic, so “at home” (in 1944) he didn’t use a stove. He wanted to become a chef. Lots of creative, edgy cuisine (although a lot of it was actually pretty amateur; I wasn’t a foodie then). If you remember me saying the cover story for moving to Canada was that we were opening a cafe? Brimstone was going to be the head chef there.

The backstories of the characters are almost always abusive (aside for a handful of “wide-eyed innocent” characters that are there to be destroyed). There’s a ton of child molestation, child prostitution, drug abuse (although again, it is clear Andy never used any of those drugs and was making it up, since I actually know recovered drug addicts and the stories do NOT line up), rape, and tons of child soldiers. ALWAYS child soldiers. Many characters also have “special” abilities – like how I just said Brimstone was pyrokinetic. Of course, those abilities didn’t transfer through the Mindhole, or if they did, it was very minor, or was a mental power like telepathy or empathy.

It seems to me as I think back to everything I’ve read of Andrew’s various cons — I could be wrong, but there seems to be so much commonality. Lots of abuse, lots of rape, children in various kinds of peril, etc. Do you think these things reappear just because he’s gotten the stories down so thoroughly, or is there something else in his personal history that these repeated motifs come from? It’s clear there’s some major mental health issues here.

I guess it comes down to a question I’ve been chewing on: is he using these elaborate, malevolent fantasies to control his followers, or does he actually believe them? Two different things, I think; maybe the truth is more of a combination of the two? What do you think?

If part of your question is “Do I think Andy was abused and this is how he is working through it,” the answer to that is an emphatic NO. I don’t like to dismiss accusations of abuse, because it certainly can happen in families that seem healthy. However, and I’ve not said this before out of respect for the Players privacy: Michael Player, the birth father of the body currently named Andrew Michael Blake, was thoroughly investigated because of Andy’s claims of abuse. I will not go into detail – that family has had ten times their fair share of shaming, agony and pain, and I hate to even share that. But it happened. The allegations of abuse of Amy Player as a child have been debunked. Period.

I don’t think he actually believes any of it. There’s too much calculating – if you catch him at the right moment you can *see* it. And sometimes when he’s throwing a calculated fit, he’s actually smiling during it. Very clearly.

At best he’s got a rip-roaring case of Munchausen Syndrome, sometimes Munchausen by Internet. Child abuse, molestation, rape, deathly illness (like that heart condition that magically repaired); all of these are common features of these behaviors. Exploiting traumas like this is also something lazy writers do. Need motivation? Unresolved tragic past! TA-DAAAA! I mean, look at that “Life and Death of Jesse James” story. Or that person’s victim’s blog, which actually gave me the courage to share some of the letters/documents I’ve saved.

Whoa, that’s weird. Back when Andy was Amy and we used to chat on AIM when we were both in Hornblower fandom, he asked me about what drugs could make a person a better writer. It was no secret that in 2002 I was smoking weed both for treating chronic pain and for recreation. Needless to say I didn’t give any info! (I had some fits of hypergraphia but I attribute them to temporal lobe epilepsy instead of C. sativa or C. indica).

Hey, I know I’m at least half a decade late to the convo, and I’ve only just dipped my toe into the increasingly tragic history of this madness. So, by means of abbreviated introduction, sorry, awful, courage, proud, etc.
I’m posting solely to ask, at the risk of stating or repeating the obvious, am I the only one who sees the strongest parallels to the “work” of Henry Darger?https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Darger#In_the_Realms_of_the_Unreal
It sounds like they hit all the same notes: interdimensional warfare, unspeakable abuse of children, confused sexuality, all epically self-contained in an outlandish dream-logic.
What these disordered minds produced sound uncannily alike, the critical distinction between their respective creators being that Darger had the decency to live as a recluse and not trap other humans in his out-of-control fantasia. Pity AB hasn’t taken that one to heart.

Munchausen by Internet… another unintended byproduct of technology, eh? (Call Al Gore! Stat!) The Jesse James story fits that too, doesn’t it? The mental warpedness that spawns this behavior is still not very clear to me, but apparently the stories aren’t based on something that really happened.

I wasn’t trying to imply the Players might be responsible; they obviously aren’t. Sorry if it sounded like that. From your description it does sound like a calculated ploy. Which is really ugly. 😦

Abbey, thank you. This is the information I was curious about, actually – what was going on that could bond people like that – and I couldn’t formulate the right questions based on what I’d already read. I am both awestruck and horrified, as well as worried for anyone else that he has scoped out. In light of his most recent hobby (as a supposed domestic violence activist), this stuff is chilling. I guess my question still remains – what is/was the purpose of all of this? Obviously, it wasn’t to be another Rajneesh with a garage full of Rolls Royces. Or a charismatic preacher fattening his wallet while he predicts armageddon. Or a ‘prophet’ with a stable of wives, building their own little piece of whatever. The fact that there was a ‘packet’ means there was some sort of plan behind all of this – but what was the purpose? Does anyone know?

And what about the couple that went on the hike? Does anyone know what happened to them?

Thank you again, for your courage, and your willingness to share this with others.

Abbey, this entry very much touched me, your braveness, kindness, and open-hearted self really shines. Honestly, I got choked up, I had almost forgotten that walk the three of us took down the Columbia River by my house, and HOW MUCH I had believed then, what it had meant to me then. I think that is the real scary part of Jordan….he gave you this amazing purpose and all these friends that you actually, for reallies, CARED about, just as if they were your real life besties….but its all bull. That’s was the first and hardest part of getting over this for me, admitting that it had all been a lie, meant losing all these friends.

So, I’m really glad you talked about that hardship, and put up documents proving how much time and effort he spent pulling You, me, and Di (and others) into all of this shit. That letter from Elrond….seriously…that is the level of manipulation that I almost forgot that he used: If you don’t believe him, then you lose YOUR FATHER. Talk about an emotional noose.

You being so frank about what Andy has done/is doing, and what it feels like to admit it, I hope it gives other courage, to break away from it. That even though, like you said, you could be losing friends, fathers, children, its all for the better, because, even though its so scary to admit it, none of it is real. That reality and truth, is always better than wearing your rose colored glasses, putting on your ear muffs and going “LALALA I’m not listening!”

I guess my whole point is, thanks for doing this in such an eloquent, emotional, truthful, and funny way, because my hope is if a DAYDian has seen that you and I and Di and many others have gone through this, and come out the other side better people, then they can do it too.

Wow. Well said. I found this via some lj wank links but this I was thinking from the first paragraph “This sounds like a cult, not fandom wank,” and then I saw on the bottom that you label yourself a cult survivor.

I wonder if you have posted about this cult on rickross forums at all? Maybe it’s selfish, but I feel like more people should know. A lot of rickross is devoted to buddhist and hindu-related cults from the 70s and people need to realize that this is a phenomenon that can take other shapes, faces, and names.

Thank you for writing this. I had an absurdly similar experience for most of high school, complete with the LotR characters and concurrently living people and demons, although I was the only other body available to the person in charge so I got to be everyone they didn’t want for themselves. Yay… Anyway, I hardly ever talk about it in terms more specific than “abusive relationship” because it’s all so hard to explain and sounds so utterly ridiculous when it’s all laid out. I am both horrified and relieved that I’m not the only person this kind of thing has happened to. “Surviving a cult” is helpful language but I don’t know if I get to call it that because it was just me.

Thank you so much for this. I was never involved in the whole Andrew Blake thing – just learned about it today – but I was involved in a similar, if far lower-key, situation. (Which I’m not really comfortable naming yet, so apologies in advance for the deliberate vagueness.) She never made any attempt to convince us that we were something else (although she was certainly a special snowflake with a mystical connection to the Universal Truth), and she never solicited donations or anything, but it had that same insular atmosphere, and it took me a long time to turn my back on her despite my doubts. And I lost all my friends there in doing so. The worst part it, I’m far from the first person to turn my back on her – but I of course would have nothing to do with anyone who would betray such a pure and loving soul, and dropped all contact with them. So I can’t even track down old friends I’d really like to reconnect with, because we *both* have changed our screennames in an effort to distance ourselves from this semi-cult. Not to mention that rl-friends slowly ditched me as I got more and more entwined in all this. And I hate missing it more than anything, because you really hit the nail on the head, the intimacy that comes from being part of this special seeking-to-save-the-world in-group, and this woman really did do a lot of good for me and the mental issues I had coming in – straight up, I was suicidal and planning to kill myself, and she almost singlehandedly turned me around and showed me that things could get better, and there was a future to work towards. And I can’t *not* be grateful for that. But at the same time, she benefitted by playing to my mental issues and how easily manipulated they left me. And it is damn lonely to walk away from this “we love you and all your flaws” support I used to get, but I just can’t take the strings that came attached anymore.

Hi. I don’t really know where to start this. I think I’ve been pulled into this. Except it’s my life and I don’t know how to let it go. I know somebody who did that sort of “mind hole” thing. Except it isn’t her fault. We were sucked in as kids; if an adult says it’s real, it has to be right? So she believed it was true, and of course I believed her. Now it has occurred to us it might be a fake. Except I loved all the people I talked to. If I tell my mother or a psychiatrist she would be sucked in too. I would lose so much. Please help me; I don’t know what to do.

I think you should talk to a psychiatrist or therapist. I don’t think you have anything to lose there. I don’t know your relationship with your mother, but I doubt she’d be sucked in to believing too. Mom’s are usually a lot more concerned with their kid’s wellbeing than fantasy worlds. And if you and your friend – I assume it’s a friend? – are minors being mentally abused by an adult it is imperative that you tell *someone* who is an adult that you trust. Best of luck

The Nostalgia Chick
Not surprisngly, the Nostalgia Chick goes more in depth than the Critic (who swears more, which is a point in his favor). Man, I’m glad someone else remembers Jem and the Holograms.

The Nostalgia Critic
Great mashup reviews of stuff from childhood. Because the 80’s were SOOOOOOOOO long ago…

Copyright & Policies

All content copyright 2007-2018 Abbey Willson/KumquatWriter.
Any correspondence may be published in whole or in part at my sole discretion unless specified as private. I do not delete comments unless requested by the author. I will make fun of your hate mail.
Please be respectful with your pronouns and only refer to Andrew Blake/Thanfiction with male or neutral language.

Abigail is married to a mad scientist and spawned a smart, funny, beautiful boy who is currently two. She has a degree in Psychology that she doesn't use, a minor in Gender Studies that she sometimes uses, and a rapier wit that she always uses. Geeky, nerdy, irreverent, smart, funny and always weird.